I've been knitting since August 2003, and it's become a major part of my life. Every day, I'm either buying or spinning more yarn, or knitting something for myself, my family or friends, or for charity. In 2009, I decided to try crochet again, after a 20 year hiatus. I'm loving both crafts now!

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Removing Carpet and Installing Vinyl Tile

Now that the room was almost empty, I "hired" my hubby to remove the carpet. He was a good, fast worker. :) The dust was flying in there, and I think it got a few specks on the camera lens. Ah, the hazards of home remodeling.

After all that carpet was finally out the door, I went to work on removing all the staples from the floor, then doing a quick sweep with a broom.

The next day (today), I started removing the carpet tacking around the perimeter of the room. What a pain!! I had to hold a crowbar under the edge of the tacking strip, then hammer the end of the crowbar as hard I could until it went in deep enough to pry up the tacking. That stuff was VERY TIGHT. It took about an hour to get it all up, and my arms were ringing from hammering metal on metal like that. Ouch! It was also VERY LOUD....not something you'd want to work on in the middle of the night.

Now, I was left with one wall of tacking, behind the furniture on that side of the room, so I left it for my hubby to handle when he got home from work. Since I couldn't do much more, I brought all the tiles into the craft room to let them "rest" and "acclimate" themselves to the room. Whatever.....I'm just doing what the manufacturer recommends.

After Marvin got home from work, we moved all the rest of the furniture out of the room, and he removed the rest of the tacking. Then, we had to carry out all that nail-covered wood. Dangerous work! I think I'm gonna ask my step-dad to bring his truck tomorrow to take this stuff to the dump for us. I would hate for our garbage men to get injured by it.

Finally, the room was COMPLETELY empty, so I went to work on sweeping up all the nails and staples, then put on my glasses and did a thorough check to remove any that we missed. I found two more staples and two more nails this way.

Next, I swept the floor again, then mixed up some TSP and hot water in a bucket to damp-mop the floor. That was ANOTHER huge job. Have you ever tried to mop a very old wood floor? The mop did NOT glide at ALL! My arms and legs were killing me after that fiasco.

Finally, I felt like the floor was getting clean. I then asked my hubby to come and put wood filler in all the nail holes. I went behind him and leveled them off with a putty knife. Now, they are drying overnight. I'll probably need to sand them a bit. Then I'll probably have to damp mop the floor again. I won't use TSP with it that time.

Ideally, we should have installed a base of plywood before installing the vinyl tiles, but we just don't have the money. Oh well. I'm not THAT picky, so I can probably live with it this way. If we ever try to sell the house, we can let the buyer know there is an ugly wood floor underneath the tiles. (tee-hee!)